It is owing to the nature of its powers
and the high source from whence they are derived--the people--that it
performs that office better than the Confederation or any league which
ever existed, being a compact which the State governments did not form,
to which they are not parties, and which executes its own powers
independently of them.

There were two separate and independent governments established over
our Union, one for local purposes over each State by the people of
the State, the other for national purposes over all the States by
the people of the United States. The whole power of the people, on the
representative principle, is divided between them. The State governments
are independent of each other, and to the extent of their powers are
complete sovereignties. The National Government begins where the State
governments terminate, except in some instances where there is a
concurrent jurisdiction between them. This Government is also, according
to the extent of its powers, a complete sovereignty. I speak here, as
repeatedly mentioned before, altogether of representative sovereignties,
for the real sovereignty is in the people alone.

The history of the world affords no such example of two separate and
independent governments established over the same people, nor can it
exist except in governments founded on the sovereignty of the people.
In monarchies and other governments not representative there can be no
such division of power. The government is inherent in the possessor;
it is his, and can not be taken from him without a revolution. In such
governments alliances and leagues alone are practicable. But with us
individuals count for nothing in the offices which they hold; that
is, they have no right to them. They hold them as representatives, by
appointment from the people, in whom the sovereignty is exclusively
vested. It is impossible to speak too highly of this system taken
in its twofold character and in all its great principles of two
governments, completely distinct from and independent of each other,
each constitutional, founded by and acting directly on the people, each
competent to all its purposes, administering all the blessings for which
it was instituted, without even the most remote danger of exercising
any of its powers in a way to oppress the people. A system capable
of expansion over a vast territory not only without weakening either
government, but enjoying the peculiar advantage of adding the